No Cause For Alarm
by On-A-Dare
Summary: Dean has insomnia, a new toy, and a little brother to annoy. Season One--Pure Fluff.


"Dude. It lights up!"

Sam rolled his eyes to the side. It was about the only move he could make without every muscle in his body lodging strenuous objections. But it was enough to let him see Dean, who was sitting on the motel room's other bed, sorting through their purchases from the 24-hour drugstore down the street.

"What lights up?" he asked tiredly.

Dean held up a small black plastic alarm clock. They always traveled with their own. Motel amenities (at least in the sort of motels they usually frequented) couldn't always be trusted, and their old one had crapped out a few days before. Dean hit the snooze button, causing the display to light up brightly in a vivid shade of green.

"Pretty cool, huh? On sale. Batteries included."

Dean looked and sounded, in Sam's opinion, entirely too gleeful for someone who had spent most of the day hiking and digging through a patch of half-frozen swampland looking for bones, and then half the night driving to their next job. Sam felt like he had been dragged behind the Impala for the last fifty miles. He groaned at the lit display—2:38 AM. It had been way too long a day.

"Well, set it and kill the light, would you?" Sam said, shifting his spine to a more comfortable position. You knew you were tired when a lumpy motel bed felt like heaven. "I don't know about you, but I'm beat."

Dean made a grouchy noise. Sam had no appreciation for his bargain shopping skills. Or much of anything else when he was tired. In some ways, his little brother hadn't changed much from when he was three or four.

But after a minute or two of shuffling plastic bags and stiff motel blankets Dean flipped off the light. The room was plunged into darkness, save for the cracks in the heavy curtains. The building was reasonably quiet and the white noise from the heater drowned out the occasional comings and goings from the parking lot.

Sam sighed with something that came close to contentment, closed his eyes, and let himself drift.

He was half asleep when a flash of green light behind his eyelids made him sit up with a start.

The room was still dark. The heater hummed and ticked faintly in the silence. And what Sam could see of his brother was an unmoving lump in the next bed.

Sam shook his head and laid back down. Just a fragment of a dream, probably. Or the blip of an over-tired brain.

When the green light appeared for a second time, it didn't go away. And this time it was accompanied by a voice.

"Tell us everything you know about the evil spirit."

Sam's eyes popped open to see 2:52 AM (_for the love of God_) staring him in the face, against a green-lit background.

"Dean," Sam said, "go to sleep."

Dean laughed and withdrew the hand holding the new alarm clock. Sam glared across the intervening space in his brother's direction.

"You're five years old. You know that, right?"

Dean snickered. Sam would have said more, but he was way too tired. He punched his pillow, trying to get comfortable again.

But as tired as he was, Sam was now on guard, and not inclined to drop off easily. Which was why Dean waited several minutes, allowing his little brother to settle into a false sense of security, before striking again.

"Take us to your leader."

Sam swiped at the glowing clock, which Dean snapped out of his reach.

"Dude. Aren't you tired?" Sam asked.

"Are you kidding? I'm freaking exhausted," Dean replied good-naturedly.

Sam rolled his head in his brother's direction. "Then why don't you go to sleep?"

"Can't." Dean shifted restlessly. "Too much coffee."

"Well, maybe you should cut back," Sam said. His brother did tend to consume coffee like it was all that kept his system going. Which, granted, some days it probably was.

"I need the coffee to drive."

"Or I could drive," Sam said pointedly.

Dean snorted. "Yeah. In a retirement community in Florida, maybe."

"Dean--"

"We'd have to get you one of those golf caps."

"_Dean_--"

"Maybe some plaid pants."

"_Dean!_"

Dean waited a moment before replying. "Yes, Sam?"

Sam sighed. "Go. To. Sleep. Or if you can't sleep, just close your eyes and rest. Come on, man. It's late."

When several minutes passed without any fraternal harassment, Sam thought that maybe Dean had actually listened to him. His eyes drifted closed, his awareness shrank to encompass his pillow, the mattress beneath his back and the scratchy motel bedspread beneath is chin, the whir of the heater lulled him into a—

--flash of bright green that lit up the backs of his eyelids. It waved gently back and forth.

"Sam. We want you to carry the Messiah."

"The hell?" Sam pushed himself up onto his elbows. "What?"

"A good virgin is hard to find," Dean said.

"Okay--that does it." Sam lunged across the two feet of space between the beds and wrestled the clock away from his brother. Pinning Dean with one arm, he held the clock a half an inch away from Dean's nose, rapidly hitting the snooze button.

"See how you like it," Sam said, while Dean tried to bat the clock away. Having made his point, Sam stumbled back to his own bed, lobbing the clock none too gently back at Dean. "Now, go to sleep," he ordered, impatiently straightening out his covers.

He had barely closed his eyes this time before there was a flick of green.

"Dude," Dean said, flicking the light on and off in Sam's face as Sam had done to him a moment ago. "How much would it suck to be chased by a herd of zombie Japanese tourists or something?"

The ensuing scuffle ended with Dean sprawled in the floor tangled in his sheets, one foot wedged under the nightstand. Sam ripped the alarm clock out of his hands, pulled a machete out of the weapons bag, and stalked outside. There was a momentary silence and then a loud _THWAK-CRUNCH_ from the motel sidewalk.

Sam walked back into the room, returned the machete to the weapons bag, and dropped the remains of the clock in Dean's lap. With a serene smile at his brother, Sam crawled back into bed, straightened his blankets with one sharp flip, and settled back against his pillows with a long sigh.

"Good night, Dean," he said, closing his eyes.

Dean scowled at his already half-asleep brother. "Dude. You gotta overreact to everything?" he asked.

Sam's only answer was a satisfied sigh.

Dean disentangled himself from his sheet, tossed it back up onto the bed, and regretfully dropped the pieces of black plastic in the motel wastebasket. He glanced sideways at his little brother, who was sleeping the sleep of an innocent, non-clock-murdering baby.

Dean carefully and quietly reached his hand into the plastic drugstore bag.

Hey. If you run across a sale that good, you take full advantage of it.

Sam's eyes popped wide open in the blaze of green light.

"We're baaa-aaack!"


End file.
